Why CIOs Should Evaluate Written Skills When Hiring IT Pros

MSP owners, CIOs, and IT managers know that hiring high-quality employees is more challenging than ever. When you recruit new members of your IT team, you might be reluctant to raise the hiring bar to include written examples of interpersonal skills, especially when it might narrow your pool even further. But poor writing skills can result in poor customer service. That can result in lost revenue and bad evaluations, so it’s critical to consider an applicant’s writing ability when expanding your IT team. Here’s why.

3 Ways Written Examples of Interpersonal Skills Affect IT Customer Service

1. Professionalism

Clients, customers, and executives make assumptions about your abilities based on your written communication, especially when it’s their first contact with you. It may not be fair, but it is reality. Misspelled words, poor grammar, or incorrect punctuation send the message that you and your team lack professionalism. Evaluating written examples of interpersonal skills as part of the job application process helps determine whether an applicant has written communication skills that represent your company or department well. 

2. Clarity

IT professionals give personalized instructions and explanations to customers. They also write user guides for wide distribution. A clear and organized writing style is necessary to do this well. Review written examples of interpersonal skills to evaluate whether a potential team member writes in a jumbled, disorganized manner or has a clear, organized style that’s easy for readers to follow.

3. Customer Service Continuity

Your team or department often works with people throughout the customer life cycle, not just one time. To efficiently and effectively serve them, your team needs accurate historical notes. If you don’t have them, customers must re-hash past problems, and your staff wastes time re-assessing the whole situation. When your IT team has good writing skills and technical skills, they will clearly document historical calls and boost the level of customer service during future interactions. An additional benefit is less frustration for coworkers.

Strong Writing Skills Have a Positive Impact Across an Organization

It’s not just customer-facing roles that need strong interpersonal skills and solid writing abilities. People in IT leadership positions give presentations, write reports for stakeholders, and need good people skills to manage their teams. IT project managers coordinate critical technical tasks through written plans, write up detailed proposals for the sales team to pitch, and interact with other contractors or individual contributors on a regular basis. When you consider the number of interpersonal interactions necessary for IT work across all roles and levels of an organization, it’s worthwhile to add a key skill like writing to nearly every job description.

For team members who don’t have the additional skills they need, the good news is that they can be learned. Communication skills like professional writing and social skills to facilitate strong relationships in the workplace have a positive impact on your organization as a whole. 

Customer Service Training for IT Professionals

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Next Level IT Customer Service Training

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